Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Several hundred people have died from fentanyl overdoses in the past few years and critics have charged that more need to be done to curb that trend. Fentanyl, an opioid painkiller prescribed to relieve chronic, intense pain—like that experienced with cancer—is increasingly being used illegally. Both the prescribed and illegally-manufactured form of the drug are being sold, and sometimes mixed with other illicit drugs like heroin and cocaine.  Fentanyl is killing users, at increasingly high rates. The 272 deaths in Alberta in 2015 represent a significant increase from the previous year, when it was tied to a total of 120 deaths. In 2011, fentanyl was implicated in just six deaths in the province. Opioid abuse has been rising in general across Canada for some years, due in part to a spike in the prescription of OxyContin and related painkillers. But the increasing availability and use of fentanyl represents a dangerous new direction because of the drug’s potency— fentanyl is up to 100 times more toxic than m